[OK] Jan 2012 - Vol 9, No 1

Terri Hendrix’ ‘Cry Till You Laugh –The Part That Ain’t Art’
    No, this is not Terri Hendrix’ latest album, but a book about her climb through the music scene and how she got to where she is today. It’s full of memoirs and snippets of her life from her first guitar (stolen from her sister) until present day. Hendrix gives us a window into how she started writing songs (her system clearly isn’t for everybody) and who she is when no one is watching. The book is also chock-full of her songs from the entire catalog, which when read, seems a bit like a book of poetry, but even for the more die-hard anti-poetic types, it works on a strange level.
    Cry Till You Laugh is funny, sad and many times profound. There are a lot of pictures covering her tours and so many laugh-out-loud moments, but what really grabbed me was the raw truth in her writing. She does not sugar coat her life to make it sound as though she is an angel fallen to earth, but lets us into her ‘real Terri’ with some of the substandard living conditions she has endured, some of the uglier sides of touring and performing as well as her inspirations for many of her songs. Anyone who is already a Hendrix fan should add it to their library without a second thought and if you enjoy reading comedy, poetry or just wants something to fill a quiet Sunday on the couch, Cry Till You Laugh is a great read.  [see: terrihendrix.com]

Roger Bell’s ‘Images of America – Muskogee’
    Anyone who has visited Muskogee, or traveled through on the way to somewhere else, will love this book. While some of the images are a bit bland and dry, the captions will explain why the images that were chosen landed in this book, which chronicles the history of the town and its people from 1872-1979. We also have to remember that everyone did not have camera phones or even polaroids for much of our history until the last 15 years, so keeping that in mind, many images of people were posed in their Sunday best and look a bit stiff. Images captures the early days when Muskogee was more of a Wild West frontier town until it became a city much like it is today. You get a bird’s eye view into the evolution and the rise of Muskogee from a little one-horse town to the sprawling metropolis we know today. The best part is that many of the landmarks that are pictured are still in existence today. We were tempted to grab the book and take a tour to find some the earlier landmarks and compare them to how they looked in the 1800s.
    What makes this book more enticing are the captions that not only chronicle the time period of the picture, but add some zest by adding follow-up information about what happened to the people and/or the place after the picture was taken. Some of the captions are a bit dry, but it’s understandable that some captions can’t be expanded on any further.  Many of the images give the reader a better understanding of why that particular picture was used as well as providing insight on what the overall vibe of Muskogee was at particular times in its history. All images have geographical references to where the image is from. It’s a great book to give or receive and makes for a perfect coffee table book for any living room or waiting room. [see: Three Rivers Museum]